Blogs

Tony Pearson is a Master Inventor and Senior IT Architect for the IBM Storage product line at the
IBM Executive Briefing Center in Tucson Arizona, and featured contributor
to IBM's developerWorks. In 2016, Tony celebrates his 30th year anniversary with IBM Storage. He is
author of the Inside System Storage series of books. This blog is for the open exchange of ideas relating to storage and storage networking hardware, software and services.
(Short URL for this blog: ibm.co/Pearson )

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This week I am in Orlando, Florida for the IBM Edge conference. Tuesday afternoon we had a Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) session to discuss social media. I was the moderator. We had two independent bloggers on the panel: [Jon Toigo] and [Steve Foskett]. We had several IBM social media experts, including Jack Arnold, Scott Drummond, Mary Hall, Nick Harris, and Rich Swain. Also joining us was Alex Hollingworth, social media expert from Emulex.

At the opening session, Deon Newman suggest we re-tweet him, isn't that plagiarism? What is your take on this?

The important thing is to give credit where it is due. Avoid screen scraping others and passing it off as your own. When you re-tweet someone, you give them credit for their original tweet. You are basically saying, "I could not have said it better myself!" With blogs, you can do the same by linking to other blog posts.

I am active in social media, but am having trouble getting the older colleagues in the IT department to participate. I want them to write down all the knowledge in their heads.

The best way to get employees to do anything new or different is to show them how it benefits them. For example, if the elders are tired of answering the same questions over and over, have them start an internal wiki, blog or knowledgebase to capture the answers to frequent questions. This will save them time, so they can see value for themselves. I suggest looking at IBM Lotus Connections which provides collaboration tools inside your firewall, accessible only to internal employees of the company.

How do we differentiate facts from opinions in our social media writings?

You can always be explicit, for example IMHO stands for "In my humble opinion". I find that blogs are 99 percent opinion, and 1 percent fact, so it is easier to point out the facts linking or citing sources, and let the rest of your writing be considered opinion.

I would like to find people on Linkedin to establish business relationships with the storage administrators, decision makers and influencers within the companies I want to sell to, how do I best do that?

Nobody likes cold calls. If you upgrade to a "Pro" account on LinkedIn, you can send 15 to 25 "Inmail" emails through their system to introduce yourself. Otherwise, consider finding someone in your network that knows them, and arrange for them to provide the mutual introduction for you.

How do I find people to follow related to the topics I am interested in, like storage?

There are tools like [Tweetadder] to help you find people to follow. Or, just search on certain hashtags, and add people you find that use them.

I am concerned about privacy? What can I do to protect my privacy?

Decide up front which topics are off-limits in your blog or other social media. For services like Facebook, check your privacy settings every 30 days. Several people have opted to create a special "Facebook Page" that represents their professional brand, so that the rest of Facebook can be used for friends and family.

I want to start a new blog, which service should I use?

Services like Blogger, Blogspt and TypePad are generally easy to set up. Wordpress is more advanced, but can be more complicated to set up.

I don't care for writing a blog, how can I set up a video blog, or vlog?

Consider creating a channel on YouTube. Another popular site is Vimeo. A "Pro" account of Vimeo provides added features.

I am new to Twitter, what tools should I look into?

I suggest you look at HootSuite. This lets you post to Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. You can schedule when a tweet will be posted, so you can right them in advance and schedule them for a certain date and time. Also, if you have a blog, you can have Hootsuite send out tweets automatically with the titles and link to each blog post.

How much effort should we put in to Social Media?

As much or as little as you want. Don't force yourself to spend more time than you want. Typically, people spend 1-2 hours per day. Cut down how much you spend watching television to make up the difference. Set up "Google Alerts" that can send you emails when certain phrases appear anywhere. There are also social bookmarking tools like Instapaper, Delicious or Diigo that can save bookmarks in the cloud for things that you want to read, but don't have time to read now.

Which social media would be the best to get chicks.

Writing a technical blog with good quality content. Girls want to be with you. Guys want to be you.

How can I use social media to provide feedback about specific products?

IBM now has a [Reviews and Ratings] for its IBM System Storage products. Consider writing a review today!

This session will cover the IBM software and hardware solutions that your organization can use to store archive data, including features like immutability, Write-Once-Read-Many (WORM) technology and Non-Erasable, Non-Rewriteable (NENR) enforcement. The discussion will include high-level concepts like chronological and event-based retention, litigation hold and release, as well as an overview of the products and solutions from IBM that you can deploy today.

IBM Watson: How it Works and What it Means for Society Beyond Winning Jeopardy!

In 2011, the IBM Watson computer was able to beat the top-earning human winners on the trivia game-show “Jeopardy!” As I was the author of [How to Build Your Own Watson Junior in Your Basement], I have been asked to explain how the IBM Watson system was put together, how it works, and what examples of text mining and big data analytics means for society as we apply technology to meet tomorrow's challenges.

Using Social Media for IBM System Storage - Birds of a Feather

I will be moderating this Birds of a Feather, or BOF, session that will bring together a Q&A panel of experts on how social media can be leveraged to help you do your job, get the information you need to solve problems, and share your knowledge with others.

Data Footprint Reduction is the catch-all term for a variety of technologies designed to help reduce storage costs. In this session, I will cover thin provisioning, space-efficient copies, deduplication and compression technologies, and describe the IBM storage products that provide these capabilities.

IBM's Storage Strategy in the Smarter Computing Era

Confused about IBM's new initiatives for Big Data analytics, Workload Optimized Systems, and Cloud Computing? This session will explain it all, and how IBM's strategy for its various storage products and solutions fit into these overall themes.

IBM SONAS and the IBM Cloud Storage Taxonomy

Confused over the different types of cloud storage? IBM's scale-out Network Attached Storage (SONAS) can be used in a variety of use cases. This session will provide an overview of IBM's SONAS solution, provide an update on the latest features and functions recently announced, and explain how it can be deployed in various private, public and hybrid cloud environments.

IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center Overview and Update

IBM has enhanced its premier storage infrastructure management tool: IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center. This session will provide both an overview of the product, and explain the latest features and functions recently announced.

In less than a month, I will be presenting at the annual IBM Storage Technical University, July 18-22, at the Hilton in Orlando, Florida. This is one of my favorite conferences! You can sign up for this at their [Online Registration Page].

I will be covering a variety of topics:

IBM Storage Strategy in the Era of Smarter Computing - After IBM has led the IT industry through the "Centralized Computing" era, and then later the "Distributed Computing" era, we are now entering the third era, that of Smarter Computing. Come learn IBM's strategy for Storage to address today's big challenges, including Big Data, Integrated Workload-optimized systems, and Cloud service delivery models.

IBM Information Archive for Email, Files and eDiscovery - This session will cover the latest announcement for our non-erasable, non-rewriteable compliance storage, the Information Archive (IA), how this can be used to protect your emails and files, and provide indexed search to assist with eDiscovery.

IBM Tivoli Storage Productivity Center Overview and Update - I was one of the original lead architects for Productivity Center. Come learn what this software is all about, and how the latest features and functions can help you manager your IT environment.

IBM SONAS and the Smart Business Storage Cloud - Confused about Cloud Computing and Cloud Storage? I will explain everything you need to know, including how the integrated SONAS appliance operates, IBM's customized solutions for private cloud deployments, and IBM's public cloud offerings.

BOF on Social Media - BOF stands for "Birds of a Feather", and his normally an after-hours discussion on a single theme. This BOF will be a four-expert Q&A panel, including myself, John Sing, Rich Swain and Ian Wright. We will discuss how we got started in Social Media, and how it has boosted our careers and our ability to get work done.